The present invention relates to an air handling and filtering system, and more particularly to an air cleaning system for use with textile spinning machines.
With modern textile machines, particularly air spinning machines and open-end spinning machines, a significant amount of dust, fly, and fiber material in general are generated during the yarn spinning process. The fly and fiber material consists essentially of two types: waste fiber material that is generally of little value, and reusable fiber material (also referred to as "white waste") which is far more valuable and useful. However, the present methods for separately drawing and filtering the two types of fiber material has proven inefficient and detrimental to yarn spinning.
It is very important during yarn formation, particularly in open-end and air spinning machines, that a continuous suction exists at the yarn formation area at each spinning station to remove waste or excess fiber material that is not spun into yarn. If not removed, this fiber material adversely affects the yarn quality. With known textile machines, independent internal ducting is generally supplied for establishing two suction airstreams along the spinning stations of the textile machine. An exhaust fan is generally supplied with each textile machine located in an end-housing thereof for drawing the two airstreams through the internal ducting. At least one of the ducting systems is configured for continuously removing the critical white waste from the area of yarn formation, while another ducting system removes waste fiber material in general. The waste fiber material can be generated from any number of processes, such as piecing up after yarn breakage or bobbin replacement, etc. Filtering devices are generally supplied in the end-housing unit for filtering the waste fiber and white waste. However, with the known arrangements, in order to clean the waste fiber filter it is necessary to shut off the exhaust fan during the cleaning operation while the waste matte is pulled from the filter. This operation takes approximately one minute. Meanwhile, the textile machine is still running at full capacity with yarn being produced at approximately 300 meters/minute at 72 independent spinning stations. During the critical one minute while the waste filter is being cleaned, the suction at the yarn formation area of each spinning station is interrupted and the yarn being produced during that time is inferior. Approximately 21,000 meters of inferior yarn is produced at the 72 spinning stations due to the cleaning operation of the waste filter.
Also, with the conventional arrangement the white waste filter and waste filter were generally arranged in series, or at least share a common exhaust fan. Thus, while the fan is shut down for cleaning of one filter, the other filter would also be cleaned whether it needed it or not. If the white waste filter alone needed cleaning, the same problem exists in that the fan has to be secured in order to pull and clean the filter. During this critical time, the continuous suction at the spinning stations is interrupted.
Another notable problem and health concern within modern textile mills is the noise level generated therein. A significant portion of the noise is generated by the air filtering and ventilation system for each textile machine. From a safety and health standpoint, it is always desired to reduce the noise level in the mills without affecting air filtering or yarn quality.